


Moondance

by tryslora



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Fate, M/M, Magical Danny Mahealani, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Moonlight, Non-Linear Narrative, Remix, String Magic, Tapestry of Fate, Teen Wolf Remix, Teen Wolf Remix 2015, moon magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-19
Updated: 2015-03-19
Packaged: 2018-03-10 05:23:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3278333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tryslora/pseuds/tryslora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles stands shirtless in the woods, the Tapestry of Fate limp across his hands. He is breathing hard, his skin shining with sweat and moonlight, and he’s sure something just happened. The thing is, he can’t remember what.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moondance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [radlilim](https://archiveofourown.org/users/radlilim/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Wrap the Moon up in Strings](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2611160) by [radlilim](https://archiveofourown.org/users/radlilim/pseuds/radlilim). 



> Oh MAN, such lovely choices for remix, but I knew I was going to do THIS piece as soon as I saw it. I had all these ideas, and I was stewing on them (along with some inspiration from the lyrics to Van Morrison's "Moondance" which yes, is how this was titled) when I was inspired by watching _The Librarians_ (it came up at just the right moment) and I suddenly ran off on a strange little tangent.
> 
> I wanted to write something that could grow out of canon, but at the same time I was hoping for romance, a little fluff, some fix-it moments. I wanted to write something long and plotty and romantic (sorry I didn't get that!). I ended up with a short, sweet, non-linear narrative and trying to use my words to echo the magical feeling of the imagery you created. I hope this comes close. Thank you so SO much for the wonderful inspiration.
> 
> Many thanks to M and K for reading this and for your comments to help me make this a tighter, better story!

When Stiles is standing in the middle of the woods, the shredded remains of the Tapestry of Fate drifting between his fingertips, and _Danny_ shows up, it’s a bit of shock.

They aren’t _anything_ to each other, and they never really have been. Danny’s always been on the periphery of Stiles’s life, vaguely almost tied to the pack by Jackson and Ethan, and after they’re gone, he’s not tied to them at all other than being in Stiles’s classes at school. Stiles doesn’t see him on a regular basis, and he’s pretty sure that Danny still holds the Miguel thing against him (fuck that, it worked, so Stiles was justified).

Danny radiates disappointment, from his thin-lipped expression to his tense stance, leaning slightly towards Stiles. “You really don’t think first, do you.” It’s not a question, the words tilting down in tone instead of lilting up. “All this power, and you have no idea how to use it without almost getting yourself killed.”

“What the hell are you doing here?” Stiles scrambles to gather up every thread that he can, tries to pull them in, weave them together ineffectually with his fingertips. They are drifting away faster than he can capture them, and in the end he has a tangled pile in his palms that is in no way big enough to recreate the tapestry that he’s unwittingly destroyed.

“Saving you,” Danny says quietly. He covers Stiles’s hands with his own, light glowing between them, shining out between their fingers, moonlit-bright all around them. He keeps speaking, as if Stiles has asked the questions churning in his head. “Because, you idiot, that’s what I _do_. Someday you’ll get this right.”

The light expands around them, burgeoning brilliantly until it bathes them in a chilled shine that shivers over Stiles’s bare skin. He feels an echo of it in his bones, then his fingers move and he finds the threads, quickly knits them together, tugging them into shape with feverish energy. He can’t stop moving, uses every bit of hyper focus that he has to rebuild the tapestry, recreating it from tattered threads and moonshine.

When he’s done, he thinks it’s smaller than before, and he wonders who was there with him for a while.

Because someone was with him. Weren’t they?

Not now, though, not here in the light of the waning moon as Stiles stands shirtless in the woods, the Tapestry of Fate limp across his hands. He is breathing hard, his skin shining with sweat and moonlight, and he’s sure something just happened.

The thing is, he can’t remember what.

#

Stiles sits on one of the benches in Deaton’s back room, feet kicking against the cabinets below him with every swing. “The Tapestry of Fate.” He huffs a disbelieving laugh. “Seriously, dude? That’s a myth. Three Fates, stringing things together, trying to create a world in their image or whatever. It’s not real.”

“Is that so?” Deaton continues to sift through things that he’s pulled from a drawer, searching for something while Scott looks over his shoulder. “Stiles, by now you should know that there is very little in myth that doesn’t hold some thread of truth.” He smiles slightly, and Stiles wonders if he’s laughing at his own pun.

Because _of course_ Deaton would find that amusing.

“If it’s true, can we risk ignoring it?” Scott pokes at the things on the table, glances at Lydia. “I mean, we’ve had enough trouble around here for a lifetime. I’d like to think that things weren’t fated—”

“Only prophesied,” Stiles says dryly, and Scott glares at him as if it’s somehow _Stiles’s_ fault that Scott’s the One True Alpha of which all other alphas are but shadow.

“We have a banshee, a phoenix, several werewolves, one were-coyote, and a kitsune.” Lydia reels off the list, ticking each one off on her fingertips. “We have hunters of legend, and we have a tree that is remarkably similar to the legendary tree of life. You have survived death—multiple times, Stiles—and you choose _now_ to believe that myth might not be true?”

“You’re talking about _fate_ , Lydia.” Stiles pushes himself off the counter, landing with a soft thunk on the floor. “ _Fate_. Like everything we’ve done until now is charted out and we’ve never had a choice. Like what Peter did to you was pre-woven, and what happened with the Nogistune is etched in string. Not to mention Allison’s death, and—”

“Fate doesn’t mean stone, Stiles,” Deaton says, tone gently chiding. “Fate is made from string, and fate can always be rewoven. Cut one string, draw a new one in its place. Think of it like a mountain ash barrier, drawn upon the ground. Change it by one small inch, forget to join the circle, and the path could shift to an entirely different future.”

“And that’s why it’s important for us to find the tapestry?” Scott asks.

Deaton nods, nudges the things he has gathered into a pile, then starts placing them one by one into a leather bag. “As long as the tapestry remains in the wrong hands, fate can be rewoven in ways that we cannot predict. When it was hidden, the world was safe.”

“Are you saying that if we get it, we control the future?” Stiles can’t help it, he has to know. Not because he wants to change the future (okay, maybe he might, because honestly, there has to be a better way to get there than the path they’ve been taking recently). “Because dude…”

“The Tapestry of Fate is all of history being made at once,” Deaton tells him. “Past, present, future. The one who holds it has the chance to change that—all of it. However, change is risk, Stiles. If we hold it, we can ensure that it is not used for sinister purposes.”

Stiles sees the look in Scott’s eyes, in Lydia’s eyes. He knows how many things have gone wrong in the past, and how many choices could still be horrible in the future. The thing is, he’s read enough superhero stories to know that with great power comes great responsibility and for once, he thinks that he gets what Deaton is trying to say. “Do you want us to protect it, and screw ourselves over, or rewrite what’s already gone wrong? And how the hell do you find someone who knows how to weave fate?”

Deaton’s smile is as enigmatic as ever. “I think you’ll find that you already know that person, Stiles. Find the tapestry, and the rest will fall into place.”

#

The tapestry is huge. _Fucking_ huge. When they get it, they have to carry it rolled up like a rug, and it takes Scott, Stiles, and Derek to support it across their shoulders on their way into the loft. They unroll it across the floor and try to stay on the edges, staring at it.

Moonbeams drift across the air, setting bits of thread alight to Stiles’s eyes; he itches to reach out and touch them.

“ _This_ is the Tapestry of Fate?” Scott looks at it, then shrugs, looking from Derek to Stiles. “It’s a rug. It’s not even a very _good_ rug. There’s no pattern, no nothing that I can see.”

There’s a pattern. It isn’t one that Stiles can define, but his fingers dance in the air between him and the tapestry, tracing it out as if he can bring it to life. One finger twitches, and he sees an answering flash of light among the weave. It’s calling to him, pulling him in, and he takes a step forward, foot grazing the edge of the weave.

“Stiles.” Derek’s voice is dark and dangerous, and it catches at Stiles, makes him hesitate and waver.

Right, _shoes_. He needs to be barefoot for this.

He hops to get them off, tosses them to the side along with his socks. When he steps forward, he feels the woven strings with his toes, sees the sparks that every step kicks off. He dances, trips, and feels the strings pull at him on the way down.

When his fingers plant, they dig in, grasping at light and pulling it out as he gasps at the feel of it shuddering into him.

“Dude, what the hell are you doing?” Scott sounds horrified, and Stiles wonders what he sees, because this is _beautiful_. It is perfect and right and Stiles knows what he needs to do. He ignores the way Derek is shouting at him, the hands that reach out to him and try to pull him back to the edge and safety.

“Making things right,” he whispers, and with a twist, he feels the threads snap and he falls into the abyss.

#

The music thumps through his bones, pounding inside his head and echoing through his fingertips and feet. Stiles waves his arms in the air, watches the strands of light that slip from his palms, gliding through the loft around him. He dances into the weave, tracing it on the ground, tying strands together that he pulls from nothing and pushes into reality, tying them, binding them, _creating_ the world around them.

No one knows and no one sees, but Stiles dances through the the past and into the future, designing the present as he goes.

“Dance with me.” An arm catches his waist, pulls him close, and Stiles looks up to find Danny staring down at him, holding him tight against his body. Paint glows from his skin, echoing the moonlight that spills in through the windows of the loft. Danny places his hands on Stiles’s hips, fits them together like they’re meant to be there, moving them in a paired echo of Stiles’s solo motion.

It feels strangely right to have Danny dance this pattern with him.

Danny strips off Stiles’s shirt, but there’s nothing there to shine, nothing but the threads in Stiles’s hands that tangle around them. His fingers drift along Stiles’s shoulder, and Stiles sees light left behind, little patterns that knot into Stiles’s skin, tying the tapestry to him and him to the tapestry, entwining him in the threads of reality. He thinks that it’s wrong, that maybe that’s too much, but the tug at his soul feels good and he sighs into the touch, sinking against Danny.

The kiss, when it comes, tastes like moondust and fate.

Stiles knows it didn’t happen this way. He remembers the rave and the Oni and that Ethan must be waiting for Danny somewhere nearby, but it doesn’t matter. Not here, not now, not when they gather the moon down to earth and trace it into the stone of the loft.

Patterns twist into knots and the tapestry is somehow smaller than before.

#

“That’s fate.” Erica sits with her chin propped on one hand, her elbow against her knee and her head cocked. She reaches out for the slip of fabric, but Stiles pulls it back, wrinkling it in his fingers.

“Part of it,” he says. It’s all he’s managed to find, and he doesn’t know where the rest of it has gone. It should be bigger. Fate encompasses a world, and this tiny scrap will barely encompass one person. “Deaton thought we should find the Tapestry of Fate, but this is more like the Hanky of Fate. Which is kind of a Beacon Hills thing, I guess. Nothing ever goes as planned.”

“Who?” Erica asks, and Stiles reaches for the thread, meaning to show her, because it’s _Deaton_ , but he realizes that thread is gone. He blinks at the tapestry, swears under his breath, because this isn’t right at all.

He rubs his thumb against the tapestry, trying to tease out the pattern in it, find the place where he can tug one string and start to rebuild. Because he has to rebuild; this is too small, too tight, to tiny to be real. There might be nothing outside this room, nothing beyond this conversation, and he has no idea how it can possibly have come to this.

His chest goes tight, aching as he tries to draw in breath. Has he woven himself out? Is the world gone? Can he even fix this? His shoulder aches, and he rubs at it, scratches at the itch in his skin and feels something unwind under his fingertips. It explodes out in shadow and light, twisting around his fingertips. He swears he hears Danny’s voice in his ears as he rises to his feet, and ignores the confused look Erica gives him as he starts to dance.

#

Stiles sits in the middle of a clearing, absolutely naked, pale skin shining under the light of the moon. He has his knees drawn up, elbows propped on them, hands held out with his fingers spread to cradle the threads of reality between them. Danny sits cross-legged in front of him, shimmer piled atop his palms, spilling out of the moon and into his hands. Stiles gently twists his fingers, draws light into thread, weaving them together in a longer string that coils on the ground.

“Isn’t it easier when you slow down?” Danny asks, and the cold shine of moonlight caresses Stiles’s skin.

He hates to admit it, but Danny’s right. “You know me so well.”

“It’s taken time, but I do. Now that you’ve let me in.” Danny reaches up, calls to the light that shivers through them both. “I think you’ll get it right this time.”

Stiles smiles, loving the way Danny’s grin brightens in response. “I will.” He knows better than to dabble in the past, but the future is mutable, uncertain, and chaotic. All he does is bring the tapestry into line, ensuring that everything is tight and neat. The past is _there_ and the present is neat and clean and ready to become the future. He knows where they are going and he will get them there.

Silver slides across his skin, and Stiles turns his hand, lets Danny weave their fingers together, as closely entwined as fate itself. “I love you,” Danny says quietly. This time it sounds right, sounds _real_ , and Stiles tells him the same in return.

#

“You’ve done well, Stiles.” Deaton unrolls the tapestry across three examination tables pushed up together. Stiles blinks at the image of it, seeing different versions: the tattered, chaotic mess that covered the floor of the loft and the tiny shining scrap that he held in his hand, flickering brightly in the moonlight, and another hundred other ones trapped in between.

He reaches his fingers towards it, pulling back when he sees light stretch from fingertip to thread. “I wove you out, at one point,” he says quietly, and Deaton only nods.

“But you wove me back in, and everything else as well. The weave is tight, perfect. Everything is as it was and as it should be.” Deaton smoothes the fabric down and Stiles can see the pattern there, in lace and shining thread.

It is no longer dingy and sprawling. Instead patterns slide over patterns, the weft and warp deftly intertwined with fates around fates. There is nothing that does not connect; it is all necessary, with no loose threads to fray and disappear.

Stiles lets his hand fall, fingertips drifting against the thread, feeling silk and cotton, wool and flax. “Fate isn’t about being bound to one thing,” he says slowly. “It’s about finding the thing you ought to be bound to, and figuring out how to do exactly that. It’s about putting the pieces together neatly, tied so that they are strong.” Reinforced, threads over threads over threads.

It’s about pack, and friendship, and family. It isn’t about who lives and dies, but who they’ve become. Even threads that have ended are an important part of the fabric of reality; without them, it would come apart and Stiles might fall through again.

He knows better than to rip indiscriminately through it now. He knows how to piece it together. And most importantly, he knows who he needs by his side to help.

“You should have told me,” Stiles says, because he’s sure Deaton knows as well.

The enigmatic smile is not an answer. “All you ever had to do was look to the moon,” Deaton says, and Stiles supposes that’s answer enough.

#

Danny holds moonlight in his palms, little sparks of light drifting away before he can gather them back. Stiles reaches into it, draws out a thread, winds it around his fingers then uses it to draw on Danny’s chest until light shines there as well.

They paint each other, the moon glowing from Danny’s skin and fate knotted along Stiles’s arms. They are woven together, entangled in moonlight and fate, until Danny catches at Stiles, pulls him in close and kisses him slowly.

“I thought you didn’t know me,” Stiles says, and it’s not the right words. They weren’t anything to each other, just two people who were at the same school, on opposite sides of the same group of friends. They were nothing, and now they are bound more closely than mortality and death.

Danny huffs a low laugh, nudging another kiss until Stiles’s breath is gone, until he breathes moonlight and exhales the chill into the night. “I always knew you,” Danny tells him, whispers the words against his throat, his chest, licks them over his body as he bears him to the ground.

“I always knew you,” Danny says again. “I was only waiting for you to know me.”

Stiles finds the edges of the threads and offers them to Danny, waiting until he accepts them, ties them neatly around Stiles’s wrist, then to his own. He rolls them both, straddles Danny and looks down at him, sees how they are both bound to and tied within the Tapestry of Fate, how it clings to them and holds them there.

“I do,” Stiles tells him. He sits up, rocking slightly, groin to groin, feeling the energy building between them. He offers Danny his hand, grins when Danny takes it, nips at his fingertips and sucks one into his mouth. Stiles hisses, the sound sharp in the moonlight, easing out into the chill of the night.

Words slip away into emotions. Stiles whispers against Danny’s lips, “Come dance with me.”

As he claims the kiss, the time for speaking is done as they let the moonlit dance tangle them in fate and carry them into the future.

 


End file.
